Ethereum, the world’s largest altcoin, has been busy prepping for the much-anticipated Merge because it showcased important indicators. Nonetheless, the primary query is the timeline. The Ethereum mainnet is slated to merge with the Beacon Chain, however the delay has fueled plenty of questions too.
Alternative value
Ethereum’s reputation has hiked over time. So has the price of doing enterprise on the community – Gasoline charges, the quantity of gwei charged per transaction. Gasoline price has steadily risen, regardless of there being declining developments every so often.
Nonetheless, this state of affairs modified as Ethereum’s common fuel charges got here all the way down to 0.0015 ETH. The typical fuel price tapped a brand new low on 2 July – A degree unseen in 19 months or since November 2020.

Supply: Bitinfocharts
The aforementioned graph marks a major drop in transaction price for the altcoin. Think about this – Beginning in January 2021, Ethereum’s fuel charges surged owing to the hype round non-fungible tokens (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi). That’s not the case anymore.
Such a decline within the price construction injects two doable situations. The apparent one – It will convey some aid to buyers/merchants/ETH holders who’ve confronted or slightly incurred immense charges.
Quite the opposite, right here’s one other grieving state of affairs – Based on DeFi Llama, DeFi dominance of the ETH blockchain is waning.
One more reason might be the decline in NFT gross sales. The NFT ecosystem recorded its worst efficiency of the 12 months in June 2022 as the entire variety of each day gross sales fell all the way down to roughly 19,000 with an estimated worth of $13.8 million — A quantity which was recorded again in June 2021. Furthermore, ETH’s community issue painted the identical image as effectively.
Moreover, ETH’s transaction depend additionally decreased sharply and hit its lowest degree over the previous 12 months.

Supply: CryptoQuant
After hitting an all-time excessive in November 2021, the metric has barely seen any sunshine. As will be evidenced from the previous, worth uptrends stay related to an growing variety of transactions. Sadly, this isn’t the case right here.
Down south to north
The upcoming Merge could be the saving grace right here. The full worth locked in ETH 2.0 deposit contract continues to file new all-time highs. As of three July, the newest stats had recorded a powerful determine.
The variety of staking ETH 2.0 deposit contract addresses reached 12,992,901. Moreover, the staking charge surpassed the 11% mark.

Supply: oklink
This implies greater than 11% of the ETH presently in circulation is deposited in ETH2.
General, ETH has integrated or proven indicators of the upcoming Merge. That being stated, the delay right here has fueled some important bearish narratives.